soul. And Patrick founded a church there, where Conu the artifex is, the brother of bishop Sechnall."*

Then the indefatigable missioner travelled through Mayo, towards the mountain then called Cruachain-Aighle, but from his time Croagh Patrick, and afterwards through Killala and Achonry. From the "Tripartite" and the "Annotations" of Tirechan, in the "Book of Armagh,” we learn that the Saint passed from the Forragh, or place of assembly of the sons of Awly, crossed the Moy (Muaidh) at Bartragh, and proceeded thence to the mound of Riabart, near which he built the church of Caisel-Irra for his disciple Bron, or Bronus, the son of Icnus. Caisel-Irra is in the district of Cuil-Irra, the peninsula lying southwest of Sligo. "Patrick marked out the site of Caisel-Irra, and the flag on which Patrick's tooth fell is in the middle of the lis. Bishop Bron founded the place, and Patrick prophesied that the place would be deserted by Gentiles, quod factum est." Tirechan, who lived in the sixth century, writes in the "Book of Armagh :" "And he (Patrick) said, behold the sea will drive ye from this place in aftertimes; and ᎩᎾ will go to the river Sligech, near the wood." This has been verified in Killaspugbrone. There still remains the ruins of one of the oldest churches in the country. Mr. Joyce, indeed, more than doubts the great antiquity ascribed to this ruined little chapel of Bishop Bron, which stands by the sea-shore, near Knocknarea. He writes:-"A ruined little church still remains on the very spot, but it cannot be the structure erected by St. Patrick, for the style of masonry proves that it belongs to a very much later period." But here Mr. Joyce is directly at issue with George Petrie, an authority second to none on the early ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland. Petrie says: -"The church of Killaspugbrone, which is of small dimensions, and, with the exception of the doorway, of rude construction, appears to be of great antiquity, and may be well supposed to be the original structure erected for Bishop Bronus by St. Patrick in the fifth century." The name still remains little changed from the days of St. Patrick, Cille aspug Broin, i.e., the church of Bishop Bron. There may still be seen the ruins of one of the oldest churches in the county on the very spot where St. Patrick stood, in the barony of Carbury, county of Sligo, and diocese of Elphin. The Four Masters have this record of the death of Bishop Bron:-" The Age of Christ, 511. The eighth year of Muircheartach. Saint Bron, Bishop of Cuil-Irra, in Connaught, died on the eighth day of the month of June." He is commemorated in "O'Clery's Calendar" on the same day. From Killas

pugbrone the saint came to the river Sligech (Sligo), where, in return. for the obliging kindness of the fishermen in casting out their nets at his request, and supplying him with a large salmon, he blessed their "Trias Thaum," p. 137, LVI. +"Tripartite," p. 430.

"Irish Names of Places," p. 83.

§"Round Towers of Ireland," p. 176.

river and prayed that it might abound with fish every quarter of the year. Thence he went through the district of Calry.

Before going farther northward he determined to revisit some of the churches which he had founded in Tyrerril and Gregraighe, and to preach the Gospel again to the people dwelling on the river Buill (Boyle) and through Moylurg. "He resolved," says the "Tripartite," "to visit Moylurg, passed through Bearnas Hua Noililla (the gap at Coloony), and moved onwards towards the River Buill (Boyle), which takes its rise in Loch Techet (now Lough Gara); but on crossing the river, his chariot was upset in a certain ford on it, and he himself was thrown into the waters, which ford is for that reason called AthCarbuid, or the ford of the chariot (vadum quadriga), and lies near the waterfall of Eas-Mac-Neirc. There the truth-speaking prophet foretold that the upper or western part of the river should abound with most excellent fish, God so disposing in favour of his great servant Columcille, who should build a monastery at Eas-Mac-Neirc, but that the lower or eastern part should be unfruitful in fish."*

J. J. K.

NEW BOOKS.

I. Transactions of the Ossory Archæological Society. (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1879.)

THIS fine octavo of five hundred and thirty pages, printed, and very well printed, at the office of the Kilkenny Journal, is the first volume of the Transactions of the above-mentioned Society, containing the papers read between the years 1874 and 1879. An excellent introduction is furnished by the inaugural discourse with which the Society was opened in January, 1874, by the bishop of the diocese, Dr. Moran, who has also enriched the volume with many very valuable dissertations in Irish hagiology. If we could transcribe the table of contents, it would be enough to show the great variety of interesting subjects discussed in these learned pages which go far to fulfil already the end for which the Society was instituted, namely, "to preserve and illustrate the records and traditions connected with the Irish Church and especially with the diocese of Ossory." Much could still be done for the preservation of the history and traditions of our country and of our Church

"Trias Thaum," p. 143, CL.

if similar zeal were displayed in other parts of Ireland. Here, for instance, is a list of the queries which each member of the Ossory Archæological Society is requested to answer. "What ruins of chapels, monasteries, crosses, round towers, and holy wells are there in your parish or district? What are the names of the patron saints and what days are solemnized as their festivals? Any old inscriptions on tombs or monuments, on chalices or church plate, in missals, registers, or parochial books? Any old leases or wills? Any traditions connected with saints, priests, churches, holy wells, localities, &c. ?" Very touching glimpses of the condition of Ireland in the penal times are given to us in such papers as the Rev. E. Farrell's "Good old priests of the olden times."

II. The Catholic Birthday Book. Compiled by a Lady. (London: Burns & Oates.)

WE wish that everything in this pretty little quarto were as unexceptional as the paper, printing, and binding. Each left-hand page is devoted to three days, to each of which it assigns a patron, a motto, and a practice, while the opposite page is left blank. The mottoes might have been culled with more judgment and from more varied and original sources, and the "practices" might be much more practical; but what surprises one most is the grotesque manner in which the compiler has carried out this item in her programme: "under each date has been placed the Feast of the day." "The Feast," remember, not one of the saints of the day, but "the Feast" with a capital F. One is shocked, therefore, to find that March 17th, which is rather widely observed as the feast of St. Patrick, has no saint whatsoever attached to it. But evidently this "birthday book" is not intended for Irish circulation. It gives St. Bridget the Swedish widow, but omits St. Brigid the Irish virgin. It omits altogether such saints as Columba, Columbanus, Malachy and Laurence O'Toole, while it inserts SS. Canock, Acca, Mildred, Alured, Cymbert, Alfwold, Ramalcas, Salvas, Paternus, Itwena, Merwina, Modwena, Egwin, Guy, Othilia, Ruthius, Leof win, and many others, of whom no particulars are given and about whom Alban Butler will hardly enlighten our ignorance. Is it by a sort of pun that the practice attached to the feast of St. Silverius is detachment from riches, and that St. Peter the Simple is assigned as patron to All Fools' Day? Many of the names are misspelled, such as Romauld, Galus, Bernadine, Lammenais, St. Francis of Paul, and St. John a Fecundo. We are sorry to find so many faults in so pious and so neatly printed a little book.

III. The American Catholic Quarterly Review. (Philadelphia: Hardy & Mahony.)

LIVING at the centre of civilization-namely, Sackville-street, Dublinwe can afford to bestow a word of encouragement on deserving periodicals published at the antipodes or across the Atlantic. We select two

of our distant contemporaries, very different in their objects and in their dimensions. The Review which we have named at the head of this paragraph is published at Philadelphia under the joint editorship of the Rev. Dr. Corcoran, the Right Rev. Dr. James O'Connor, and Mr. George Dering Wolff. It fills the gap left by the death of Dr. Brownson and of his famous Review. It has reached its fifth volume with distinguished success. American Catholics ought to be proud of it, and ought to show their appreciation in a practical way.

We were going to join, by way of a quaint contrast, with this grave and solid quarterly another quarterly of much more modest pretensions and dimensions, the lively and clever St Patrick's College Gazette, published at Melbourne. But we have spoken of it before, and it is not meant for home circulation: whereas, just as the new postage to the United States, being the same as that to the other side of the Liffey, enables the IRISH MONTHLY to extend its circulation in America, so many of our readers will be glad to make the acquaintance of the Ave Maria, a very pious and pleasing miscellany which appears once a week at Notre Dame in Indiana. The only journal in the English language which is specially devoted to the honour of the Blessed. Virgin ought to be welcome to us here at home where filial devotion to the Mother of God is, thanks be to God, one of the national and hereditary instincts of our warm-hearted Celtic race.

From the same centre of intellectual life and Catholic piety from which the Ave Maria emanates, namely, the Notre Dame University, there issues also the Notre Dame Scholastic which St. Patrick's College Gazette above referred to might in many respects copy with advantage and which must have a powerful effect in keeping up a vigorous esprit de corps among the old and new students of that University. We certainly agree with an observation in the prospectus with which it enters on its thirteenth year: to wit, that all "old students should take it," if it were only for its "personal gossip about the whereabouts and the success of former students."

IV. Old Celtic Romances. Translated from the Gaelic by P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co.)

DR. JOYCE, who has already done so much excellent service for the literature of our native country by his "Origin and History of Irish Names of Places" and several other works, has furnished us in the present handsome and attractive volume with "the first collection of the old Gaelic prose romances that has ever been published in fair English translation." Of the eleven tales which he has selected out of the manuscripts of Trinity College and the Royal Irish Academy some have never before been published in English and the others were hitherto almost unreadable, having been translated for linguistic purposes merely. The best known of these, thanks to the note on Moore's

"Silent, O Moyle!" is the exquisitely sorrowful "Fate of the Children of Lir;" the longest is the "Voyage of Maildun." Dr. Joyce has wisely broken up the tales into chapters with headings; and his notes, identifying persons and places, add much to the interest of the narrative.

This volume of old Gaelic romances will be heard of hereafter in our pages; but we must close the present notice with the words of a writer in the Spectator (June 22, 1878) who thus concludes a review of Mr. Standish O'Grady's "History of Ireland: "—

"Laying down this volume, it will naturally occur to the reader to ask why Irish poets have left so long unwrought this rich mine of the virgin poetry of their country. Why does not some one arise among them aspiring to do for these legends what Tennyson has done for the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? Moore went to the East for a subject for his pen; Denis Florence MacCarthy bestows years of labour upon translations of Calderon; Aubrey de Vere has written some exquisite poetry, and much which is peculiarly Irish in subject and feeling, yet he, too, forbears to enter this untenanted palace of art. Of living men, Sir Samuel Ferguson, in his 'Congal' and R. D. Joyce, in his 'Deirdre,' alone have shown a disposition to do such service to the literature of their country. D'Arcy Magee left some noble ballads, as witness of what he might have done, had he lived, but we look around inquiringly for one who will sing us the story of Cucluain. Will the Irish Muse sleep till the foreign invader pounces upon her treasures? The author of the present work is doing something to bring these beautiful legends under the notice of the world, and he deserves all honour for an attempt which we sincerely hope may be successful."

Composed by a

V. The Festival of Corpus Christi. A Floral Drama. SISTER OF MERCY. (London: Burns & Oates.) THIS and its companion "Offering of Flowers" are very prettily got up, and will no doubt be effective when well acted. For these practical purposes the "Offering of Flowers" ought rather to be from children to their mother or mistress. The Sisters of a community can hardly find time to show their filial devotion in this particular fashion. VI. Meditations for the Young. Revised by a Jesuit Father. (London: Burns & Oates. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son.)

WE are forced to leave unnoticed this month Canon Doyle's "Lectures for Boys" (R. Washbourne), Father Reyre's "Pastoral Year" (James Duffy & Sons), and some other books sent to us for review. But we must, at least, announce the appearance of the first instalment of a new set of Meditations specially intended for the young: for this little fourpenny book contains the meditations for January, and therefore it would be too late to mention it in February. The meditations are very brief, clear, and simple.